Our Primary Children sing a song entitled "We'll Bring the World His Truth"
The chorus is
"We are as the army of Helaman.
We have been taught in our youth.
And we will be the Lord's missionaries
To bring the world his truth."
Full time missionaries are often thought of as a young army serving the Lord.
In the picture, along with 2000 young warriors we see their leader Helaman. This is a depiction of an account in the Book of Mormon. Soldiers are never "managed" into battle but they are "lead"
We admire our young men and women who sacrifice 24 and 18 months of their lives to serve. We marvel at the senior couples who once retired, choose to serve missions all around the world. Then there is an even more elite group of individuals and families. Those that are called to serve as modern day Helamans. We call them Mission Presidents. They serve for 3 years, leaving their homes and often uprooting their families to lead missionaries. Speak to any missionary, and he or she will talk in glowing terms about their Mission President. As parents, we have total trust that the President and his wife will love and protect our son, as they would their own. They are seen as Leaders, not Managers.
The Greece Athens Mission has just said goodbye to President Freestone and his wife, I have never met him but those that have, including Elder Teal, speak highly of him. With his departure President Heder has been called. Typically the change over between leaders is completed within a single day and then the job of running a mission is left with the incoming President as he sees fit.
The following was the announcement of President Heder's call taken from lds.org
We were excited to learn that President Heder's daughter Alinda, is planning on blogging through their mission experience. We have already loved seeing pictures of the missionaries she shares on Facebook !
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| Athens |
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| Thessaloniki |
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| Cyprus |
If you would like to follow along and learn more about life as the daughter of a serving Mission President in Greece, Bookmark her blog !
I asked Alinda to to share some thoughts to introduce her blog...
"It was October 1st, 2014 when my dad called us all together for a family meeting. He told us that he was being called to serve as a mission president for the LDS church, a calling that lasts three years. My sister and I knew then that our lives were going to change, but we didn't realize how much. He explained that he would be serving in the Athens, Greece mission, and we were going with him! So on June 29th, 2015, we packed up and headed off to Greece. This is the Heder family's story."
#ourbigfatgreekmission
Now click the picture below to take a look !
